The present invention relates generally to methods and devices which simultaneously store, into an electronic storage medium, main information such as tone control information (MIDI data) and supplementary or additional information associated with the main information, and reproduce the main information and additional information thus stored in the electronic storage medium. The present invention also relates to electronic storage media for storing therein such main and additional information or software programs to implement such a method. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and device which allow main information to be stored with associated additional information incorporated therein.
In recent years, it has become possible for us to readily create music data, image data, waveform data, etc. and make various alterations to these data by use of a personal computer. Thus, using a personal computer, we can freely read out music data, image data, waveform data, etc. recorded on a commercially available storage medium, such as a FD (Floppy Disk), CD-ROM (Compact-Disk-Read-Only-Memory) and LD (Laser Disk), and also freely make various alterations to the data.
However, because the copyright on the data recorded on a commercially available CD-ROM or LD is mostly owned by the distributor or manufacturer of the storage medium, freely altering the recorded data would constitute an infringement of the copyright and hence should not be permitted.
At present, in an attempt obviate such a copyright infringement, copyright indication data specifying who owns the copyright on main data, such as music data, image data or waveform data, recorded in a main data recording section of a CD-ROM or LD is attached, as additional information, to a header section of the storage medium, so as to identify the copyright holder. Other than such copyright indication data, the additional information sometimes include information indicative of the title of the music data, image data and waveform data, or recording-format information that indicates a particular sort of data compression technique used for compressing the data.
However, because the data can be freely rewritten or altered by use of a personal computer or otherwise, a significant problem may be encountered that any of the additional information, such as the copyright indication data, is readily deleted, altered or rewritten on purpose or by mistake. In particular, where such additional information is stored in the header section, the additional information may be deleted or altered quite easily.
Further, with the recent advancement of communication networks, there could arise another significant problem that music data, image data or waveform data with the copyright indication data deleted or alerted in an unfair manner is widely distributed via communication networks. Still another significant problem is that if the additional information on the data recording format used is deleted, the image data, waveform data or the like can not be reproduced at all.